Interested in this topic? You may also want to view these photo galleries:

A $13 million project to renovate the Sunvilla Tower, located at Elm Street and John Q. Hammons Parkway, is wrapping up. All of the floors are now open to students.(Photo: Nathan Papes/News-Leader)Buy Photo

Upchurch showed off his view during a Thursday tour by the News-Leader. He requested to live on an upper floor of the 18-story residence hall and, because of that, was one of 145 students allowed to move in before fall classes started.

Nearly 100 other students, slated to live on floors 3-9, spent the first few weeks of class living out of nearby hotels. They weren’t able to move in until late this week.

A $13 million project to overhaul the tower, constructed in the early 1960s, started in mid-2014 but took longer than expected to complete. The changes include major safety upgrades, including the installation of a sprinkler system, and renovations designed to provide more contemporary apartment-style living.

To accomplish that, the university spent another $1.5 million buying furniture, fixtures and equipment. The features are either mint green, baby blue or off-white.

“So much of what we did was behind the walls,” he said. “The building is ventilated differently and better than it was.”

The high-rise apartment complex was built in 1963 and bought by the university in 1976, but student interest in living there dropped in recent years, especially after the university removed stoves because of the lack of sprinklers.

Increased interest in off-campus housing spurred the university to renovate the tower, market it to upperclassmen and offer lower rates. While no longer the $75 a month charged to residents in the mid-1970s, a yearly contract ranges from $6,624 to $7,224 — or roughly $600 a month.

The university has enough room for 4,031 students to live on campus, including Sunvilla. “This is the most affordable housing that you have here,” he said.

The furnished apartments are different sizes, accommodating up to four students each, and the complex stays open during breaks. Students living there have fully equipped kitchens, so they are not required to purchase a campus meal plan.

The building also comes with Wi-Fi, extended basic cable and data ports in the living room.

Numerous structural and cosmetic changes were also made. Walls were moved to make bedrooms big enough to accommodate two double-size beds and removed to open the kitchens to the living rooms.

“Students had input into the furniture,” he said.

The bathrooms are small but were gutted and renovated to make better use of the existing space. Any remaining bathtubs were removed and crews installed new tile, showers, sinks and toilets.

Off the first-floor lobby, where a front desk is staffed 24 hours a day, there is a computer lab and secured bicycle storage. It will be needed because a planned tornado “safe room” on the property will be built on some of the existing parking space.

The basement includes a large laundry area. Residents can use the washers and dryers for free and download a smartphone app, synced to the machines they use, that will alert them when the washing or drying cycle is done.

Sunvilla residents who are age 21 or older are allowed to have alcohol in their residence hall room. That rule is also in place at Kentwood Hall and the Monroe Apartments.

The only major job remaining is to spruce up the two service elevators in the center of the building.

Sunvilla was designed by architect Richard P. Stahl, a Drury University graduate who was also behind the look of Trinity Lutheran Church and Springfield’s Parkview and Hillcrest high schools.

One quirk of the tower was preserved and will be used in a different way. In the hallways of every floor, there are small, locked doors that are roughly the size of a kitchen trash can.

“They used to pull the trash for every apartment, a service we provided,” Stewart said. “We restored that so we can do a recycling program.”

Noah Hendel, a sophomore in marketing, lives in a two-person apartment on the 12th floor. He lived at the Hammons House last year and was looking for a change.

“I wanted to stay on campus and still get the apartment-style building,” Hendel said. “I was really surprised when I first walked at how big it was and how nice it was.”

Students, including Hendel, allowed to move in mid-August lived in the tower while construction was wrapping up in the lower floors. To make life easier for those students, the university gave them access to campus meals.

Stewart said the renovation delay cost the university just over $200,000, primarily in hotel charges for the nearly 100 students living at the University Plaza or the Holiday Inn.

During the stay, students were able to access all hotel amenities including breakfast and housekeeping service, at no cost to them. The university routed shuttles to pick up and drop off those students and allowed them to eat at campus dining centers at no charge. They also received a credit to their account for the time they were displaced.